This appears in the latest Verso catalogue, scheduled for publication in November:

Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchensby Richard SeymourBlistering and timely interrogation of the politics and motives of an infamous ex-leftist.

Among the forgettable ranks of ex-Leftists, Christopher Hitchens stands out as someone determined to stand out. Rejecting the well-worn paths of hard-right evangelism and capitalist “realism,” he identified with nothing outside his own idiosyncrasies. A habitual mugwump who occasionally masqueraded as a “Marxist,” the role he adopted late in his career—as a free radical within the US establishment—had ample precedents from his earlier incarnation. It wasn’t the Damascene conversion he described. His long-standing admiration for America, his fascination with the Right as the truly “revolutionary” force, his closet Thatcherism, his theophobia and disdain for the actually existing Left had all been present in different ways throughout his political life. Post–9/11, they merely found a new articulation.

For all that, the Hitchensian idiolect was a highly unique, marketable formula. He is a recognizable historical type—the apostate leftist—and as such presents a rewarding, entertaining and an enlightening case study.

A few days ago, I got wind of some of the arrangements prepared for the Olympics opening ceremony. Danny Boyle was readying a celebration of the NHS and multicultural Britain. It was going to be a New Labour-tastic re-imagining of Cool Britannia some fifteen years on. Two things were immediately apparent. The Tories would hate it; and some on the Left would temporarily lose their reason and find their patriotism.

This is all very well in a way. After all, this isn't 1997 - the NHS is under unprecedented attack, and Britain's multiculture has been hammered for more than a decade. We are living in an age when celebrating these things is seen by some as 'too political' or, for the riper pundits, 'left wing propaganda'. And if the "people's history" found empire too touchy a subject to encounter except obliquely, through the prism of Commonwealth immigration - the sole complaint of Boris Johnson who otherwise professed to be delighted with its focus on the NHS, the rise of the industrial working class, and "the triumph over the capitalism" - its acknowledgment of any social antagonism amid the diorama of 'Britishness', from bucolic prancing to industrial dancing, was probably a little unexpected for most viewers.

An ideologically interesting gesture was the binding of what Owen Hatherley presciently called 'austerity nostalgia' (that reverence for the virtuous Forties when everyone pulled together, backs to the wall, living off rationed food and facing down the enemy with stoical good humour, their struggle eventually rewarded with social peace and plenty) to a vaguely critical left-of-centre politics. Perhaps this was not dissimilar in tone to that UK Uncut 'Great British street party'. It was nationalism, but it was a decidedly Labourist nationalism.

My point, basically, is that one can always grin through it while perfectly normal people find various reasons to be #ProudOfBritain, and pundits fall over themselves to worship at the shrine of Boyle's genius. (And really, his films are enjoyable, but if anyone thinks this guy is a creative mastermind they really need to check out his Twitter feed.)

Still, amid the general Sunday morning hangover, I hope those on the soft left who threw aside their probity for a saturnalian flag-fest are now in the mood to confess and repent. Lawks, Mary Poppins saving the NHS from Voldemort to the tune of Branson's money-spinner Tubular Bells! Let the Tories dare privatise the NHS now! (They're already doing it. They'll still be doing it on Monday. The fine nurses and doctors from Great Ormond Street Hospital danced in vain if this was supposed obstruct this determined class assault.). James Bond and the Queen! Britain loves to take the piss out of itself! (This is the sort of self-congratulatory dribble, in this instance referring to an insufferably smug streak of meconium passing itself off as wry British humour, that proves patriotism cannot be genuinely self effacing; it is only in the service of its amour propre that it allows the slightest critical reflection.). Boyle loves Britain's modern social and racial mobility, and so do we! (Every bit as real as the dark legions of Voldemort.)

Whatever the creators' intentions, whatever people now do to appropriate elements of this spectacle for their own agendas, the fact is that it's major achievement was to induce people to forget temporarily what a disgrace the Olympics are; how hated they are in the East End where the Olympics Green Zone has been implanted, protected by rooftop missiles that residents don't want; how poor people have been drive out of their homes as they always are when the Olympics comes to town; how much our civil liberties have already been attacked in the name of suppressing criticism of this ugly metro-plasty, as legislation and police exercises have been framed in the assumption that protest during these events is a potential terrorist plot; how preposterous it is that the 'security' for this montage of pointless exercises is being supplied by thousands of soldiers fresh from hunting shepherds in Afganistan; how fucked up it is that the major sponsors of this debacle, their names glowingly referenced all over the city's billboards, are corporations like McDonalds (which specialises in heart disease, bowel cancer and obesity), and Atos (which specialises in throwing disabled people off benefits and will no doubt have a special role in the Paralympics); and above all the fact that this is sports, pointless, boring sports, and the only reason anyone really wants to watch someone else swim forty lengths or jump over sandpits is because they're doing so on behalf of the nation.

Those leftists who did have a patriotism binge this weekend can report here to expiate their craven indulgence first thing tomorrow morning. I have some chores for you to do.

As Bashar al-Assad flees the capital, the armed segments of the revolution appear to be inflicting blows on sections of the security apparatus and taking over major cities: the revolution is turning a corner. Robert Fisk reports that a crucial dynamic now is the fracturing of an alliance between the Sunni middle class and the Alawite regime, signalled by the spread of the revolt to Aleppo. And defections from the state-capitalist power bloc continue. Indeed, Juan Cole has suggested that such divisions must run deep in the Syrian state for the opposition to be capable of planting a bomb that can kill a senior minister.

...

The course of this uprising, from the immolation of Hasan Ali Akleh in January 2011, redolent of Mohamed Bouazizi's death in Tunisia, to the suicide attack on the defence minister, has been brutal. In the early stages, the Syrian government had a monopoly on violence. It was police violence and the decades-long rule by the Ba'athist dictatorship, undergirded by repressive 'emergency law', which provoked the 'days of rage'; it was the police beating of a shopkeeper that provoked a spontaneous protest on 17th February 2011 in the capital, which was duly suppressed; it was the imprisonment of Kurdish and other political prisoners that led to the spread of hunger strikes against the regime by March 2011. And it was the security forces who started to murder protesters in large numbers that same month. It was they also who repeatedly opened fire on large and growing demonstrations in April 2011. In the ensuing months until today, they have used used everything from tear gas to live bullets to tank shells.

And the main organisations of the Syrian opposition pointedly refused the strategy of armed uprising, noting what had happened in Libya, and arguing that the terrain of armed conflict was the ground on which Assad was strongest. Nonetheless, the scale of the repression eventually produced an armed wing of the revolt. The Free Syrian Army became the main vector for armed insurgency, expanded by defections from the army and the security apparatus. Now it is making serious advances.

In response to the insurgency, the argument among a significant section of the antiwar left has
been that this revolution has already been hijacked, that those who
initially rose up have been sidelined and marginalised by forces allied
with external powers, intelligence forces and so on. Thus, the arms, money and international support for the armed rebellion is said to be coming from Washington, and Riyadh, and Tel Aviv. The likely outcome is the decapitation of a regime that is problematic for the US, and its replacement with a regime that is more amenable to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, they argue, the political forces likely to hegemonise the emerging situation are essentially reactionary and sectarian. The left, democratic and anti-imperialist forces are, they say, too weak to lead the fight against Assad's regime. And so, as Sami Ramadani puts it in the latest Labour Left Briefing, "the sacrifices of the Syrian people have been hijacked by NATO and the Saudi-Qatari dictators".

Tariq Ali was the
latest to make this case on Russia Today (prompting an impassioned rebuttal from this left-wing Syrian blog). MediaLens, an organisation whose output I have promoted in the past, also takes this view, and reproaches myself and Owen Jones for being insufficiently attentive to the accumulating mass of evidence that the armed revolt is basically a creature of imperialism, its actions no more than, effectively, state terrorism. Obviously, I think this is mistaken.

...

I'll start with imperialism. One has to expect that in a revolutionary situation, rival imperialist powers will try to influence the course of events. We have seen the US, UK, France and Russia all involved in Syria's battle in different ways. Washington has long provided funding and other types of support to opposition groups, and the CIA is alleged to be training groups outside the Syrian border. It has two specific reasons to be involved: taking out a strategic ally of Iran, and being seen to be on the side of democratic change in the Middle East. The nature of its involvement is dictated by its preference for some sort of coup d'etat rather than a popular revolution; they want to encourage more senior regime defections so that a faction of the old ruling elite can coordinate its forces, lead an armed assault on the bastions of the Assad regime, and then declare itself the new boss. That is most likely why they are selectively feeding arms to groups they deem reliable, and training various select groups outside the country.

Russia, of course, is nowhere near as powerful an imperialist state as the US. Its role is arguably slightly enhanced by the fact that it is backing up a centralised, well-armed regime (vis-a-vis the insurgent population), whereas the 'Western' imperialist powers have been trying to infiltrate and co-opt elements of a very loosely coordinated resistance. The rebels by all accounts are extremely poorly armed; the trickle of weapons from the Gulf states is nothing compared to the helicopters, tanks and other munitions which the Assad regime possesses and deploys with such indiscriminate force. However you assess the relative balance between the various intervening forces, though, the point is that if you want to talk about imperialism in Syria you cannot just ignore the intervention taking place on behalf of the regime.

In fairness, many of those commentators highlighting imperialist intervention have also noted the flow of arms from Russia to the regime - Charles Glass, for example. Moreover, none of them appear to be denying serious repression by the regime. Rather, Patrick Seale is typical in arguing that the transition to an armed strategy, provoked by the regime, has been immensely destructive, as this is the terrain on which the regime is the strongest.

Nonetheless, there is in some of this a type of 'blanket thinking'
that one commonly encounters, in which a signposted quality of one
organisation, or faction within an organisation, or individual within a
faction, is taken to be expressive of the situation as a whole. Thus,
for example, Ramadani characterises the Syrian National Council (SNC)
and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are characterised as "Saudi-Qatari-backed
... logistically backed by Turkey": which is some of the truth, but
simply not the whole truth. I will return to this. Likewise, when Seale describes the opposition strategy as being one of provoking "Western military intervention to stop the killing on humanitarian grounds", he ignores the declarations of the Local Coordinating Committees (LCCs) which are the organisational, cellular basis of the revolt, and which have consistently opposed imperialist intervention. He also ignores the left-nationalist and Kurdish forces - there are traditions of anti-imperialism in Syria well beyond the Ba'ath Party.

Or, let's take as an example this article
by the comedy writer Charlie Skelton which is being recited widely. It
basically makes two arguments. One is that leading figures within the
Syrian National Council have connections to various US-funded bodies.
The other is that vocal neoconservatives are pressing for military
intervention and 'regime change', and declare themselves pleased by the
successes of the armed opposition such as the Free Syrian Army. In and
of itself, this could be part of a valid argument: why should these
people be the spokespersons for the Syrian revolution in the Anglophone
media? Why should the interests of Syrians be hijacked for some
imperialist grand strategy? However, inasmuch as this ignores the majority of what is taking place, instead looking solely at narrow networks of influence, this is indeed a form of 'blanket thinking', allowing small minorities to stand in for the whole.

Imperialism is certainly involved. However, a few vulgar regime apologists to one side, no one is denying that there is more to it than that; that there are internal social and class antagonisms that have produced this revolt. If you want an analysis of the breakdown of the Syrian social compact in the last decade, amid a new wave of US imperialist violence which sent waves of refugees fleeing from Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad's neoliberal reforms, you should see Jonathan Maunder's article in the last International Socialism. The important point is that the regime can't survive. It is incapable of advancing the society any further, even on bourgeois terms. There is, therefore, only the question of how the regime will be brought down, and by whom.

The question is, is the geopolitical axis dominant? Is it this, rather than domestic antagonisms, which will determine the outcome of this revolt and its meaning?

...

When you hear from ordinary Syrian activists, and not the exiles in the
SNC, you don't hear a lot of support for an invasion or bombing: quite the contrary. The trouble is that there have been groups advocating intervention, and there has been a degree of intervention already. And while the rank and file have never been won over to the strategy of armed imperialist intervention, there isn't much unity over what strategy should be pursued and to what precise end. The question then is which forces can dominate and impose their line.

Before addressing this, one should say something about the organisational basis of this revolution. It isn't the leadership of the Syrian National Council (SNC), whose role as an 'umbrella' group belies their lack of influence on the ground. At the most basic, cellular level, it is the local coordinating committees (LCCs). A section of these, about 120 of them, have recognised the SNC since it was founded, and have some formal representation. In fact, they are grossly under-represented in the SNC structure compared to the liberal and Islamist opposition groups. And they don't make a very effective representation within the SNC structures, which means that when the SNC speaks it isn't necessarily speaking for the grassroots. However, a larger chunk, some 300 LCCs, have declined to recognise or affiliate to the SNC. The LCCs have opposed imperialist intervention, despite the bloodiness of Assad's repression; they have even tended to resist the trend toward militarisation of the uprising. Now, the LCCs, being localised resistance units based in the population, are not politically or ideologically unified. There are undoubtedly reactionary elements among them, as well as progressive and just politically indeterminate forces. So, the question of political representation is significant.

And at the level of political representation, there are various ideologically heterogeneous coalitions and groups. The SNC is understood to be the main 'umbrella' organisation unifying several strands from Kurdish to liberal groups. The leadership is disproportionately weighted toward exiles, while the actual systems of representation within the SNC are seriously skewed toward the bourgeois liberals and the Muslim Brothers. That's not the end of the world, given that some people have been invoking 'Al Qaeda' (really? people on the Left buying into this? Apparently so...) or just sectarian jihadis of one stripe or another. The fact is that Islamists and liberals are a part of the opposition in most of the old dictatorships of the Middle East, from Tunisia to Algeria to Yemen to Egypt to Bahrain etc etc etc. But these forces do represent the more conservative and bourgeois wing of the resistance to Assad. Generally speaking, like the LCCs, they have opposed the strategy of armed struggle - this is one of the reasons for their generally antagonistic relationship with the Free Syrian Army. But they did favour a strategy of armed intervention until forming an agreement in January with the left-nationalist National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which rejected all imperialist intervention from outside the region: in other words, they would accept help from Arab states, but not from the 'West'. (Caveat: as will become clear, the SNC negotiators did not get this agreement ratified, and it may well be that the issue of imperialist intervention was one of the sticking points.)

Why, then, did the dominant forces in the SNC look for a time to imperialist intervention? I think it is obviously because these are not forces that are comfortable with mass mobilisation, least of all with armed mass mobilisation. A UN-mandated intervention - bombing, coordination with ground forces, etc. - would have solved this problem for them, achieving the objective of bringing down a repressive and moribund regime without mobilising the types of social forces that could challenge their hegemony in a post-Assad regime. Then they could have been piloted into office as the nucleus of a new regime, a modernising, neoliberal capitalist democracy. But as the prospects of such an intervention declined, as the grassroots failed to mobilise for some sort of NATO protectorate, and as the emphasis shifted to armed struggle via the Free Syrian Army (FSA) throughout the first half of this year, the SNC has been compelled to respond. It has developed a military bureau to relate to the FSA, albeit this has produced more claims of attempted manipulation.

Despite its international prominence, however, the SNC is not the only significant political formation organising opposition forces. The main organisation in which the Syrian left is organised is in the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, mentioned above - also known as the National Coordination Committee (NCC), tout court. This is the second most widely recognised organisation aside from the SNC, and has a much stronger basis within Syrian society. It is headquartered in Damascus rather than in Turkey, it has a strong basis in the LCCs and includes Kurdish, nationalist and socialist organisations. There have been attempts by both the SNC and NCC to overcome their differences and construct a sort of united front against Assad, but their political and strategic differences have made this impossible. Another factor obstructing unity is the NCC's position within Syria; it is far more exposed to military reprisals by the regime, and thus must pitch its demands very carefully. This is an important reason why it has emphasised a negotiated settlement as the answer to the crisis.

Also of significance is the Kurdish National Council, created by Kurdish forces in anticipation of having to fight their corner in a post-Assad regime: indeed, the reluctance of the majority of Kurds to actually support the SNC has been a significant factor in the composition and division of labour in the opposition. For Kurds oppressed in Assad's Syria, who do not automatically trust a future regime dominated by Sunni Arabs to protect minorities, it is seen as far more sensible to turn to a dense network of regional supporters and interests, described very well here.

The lack of unity between any political leadership and the revolutionary base - which extends to a lack of coordination between the coalitions and the armed groups, as we'll discuss in a moment - is a real weakness in the revolution. Aside from anything else, it makes it harder for the opposition to win over wider layers of the population - because people aren't sure exactly what they'll be supporting, what type of new regime will emerge from the struggle. There is a real fear of sectarian bloodshed, notwithstanding the cynical way in which the regime manipulates this fear. The military and civilian opposition leaders have tried to allay this fear, and FSA units say they are working with Allawi forces. But without a degree of unity and discipline, with the continued disjuncture between the turbulent base and the political leadership, and with Assad's forces heavily outgunning the opposition, this is a powerful disincentive for people to break ranks with the regime. Moreover, if some greater degree of cohesion and coordination is not reached, then the risk of some force outside the popular basis of the revolt (say, a few generals leading a proxy army) interpolating itself in the struggle and siezing the initiative, is increased.

This is not to argue that the SNC and NCC must converge around a common programme and then somehow impose themselves on the LCCs. I don't know how the political division of labour in the opposition could be optimised, and unity between the base and the leadership of such a movement would have to be negotiated and constructed on the basis of a recognition of the mutual interests of the social classes and ethnic groups embodied in the movement. Further, whether a merger would help or hinder the revolution probably depends very much what the agenda is and who is materially dominant in the emerging representative institutions. It does, however, explain why there have been and will continue to be attempts at forging some sort of unity, despite the ongoing antagonisms and differences between the various forces, and despite the very real problems with the SNC leadership.

...

As for the armed contingent, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been summarily vilified and demonised by many polemicists. Consistent with the 'blanket thinking' referred to previously, the FSA has been deemed a sectarian gang, terrorists, a Saudi-Qatari front, and so on. The first and most important thing about the FSA is that it is made up of anything between 25,000 and 40,000 assorted rebels - defectors from the armed forces, both soldiers and officers, and various civilians who volunteered to fight. As such, it is as politically and ideologically variegated a formation as the LCCs. Nominally, the FSA is led by Colonel Riad al-Asaad, a defector from the air force whose family members have been executed by the regime. But the reality, as Nir Rosen describes, is more complex: "The FSA is a name endorsed and signed on to by diverse armed opposition
actors throughout the country, who each operate in a similar manner and
towards a similar goal, but each with local leadership. Local armed
groups have only limited communication with those in neighbouring towns
or provinces - and, moreover, they were operating long before the
summer." In other words, this is a highly localised, cellular structure with limited cohesion.

Contrary to what has been asserted in some polemics, then, the FSA is not simply a contingent of the SNC. It formed independently, several months into the uprising, following a series of lethal assaults on protests by the regime, specifically in response to the suppression in Daraa. It incorporated armed groups that had been operating locally with autonomous leadership for a while. Its relationship with the SNC, despite attempts by the leaderships to patch over differences, has been strongly antagonistic - largely because of the SNC leadership's opposition to the strategy of armed insurgency and its fears of being unable to control the outcome. Earlier in the year, a split from the SNC formed briefly over this point, with a group formed within the council to support armed struggle. Therefore, those who describe the FSA as "the armed wing" of the SNC, as The American Conservative did, are only exposing their ignorance, as well as that blanket-thinking. The same applies to those who say that the FSA is a Turkish-Saudi-Qatari client. Undoubtedly, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies have an interest in this struggle. Certainly, the leadership of the FSA is currently situated in Turkey, and enjoys Turkish support. And Turkey is a NATO member. But the extent of any support must be judged to be poor, because by all reports the army remains an extremely loose, and lightly armed force. Purely on military grounds, the regime has always enjoyed the advantage, and continues to do so. Moreover, the FSA is just far too disarticulated and heteroclite to be converted into someone's proxy army - unless you assume that any degree of external support automatically makes one a proxy, which strikes me as specious reasoning.

Finally, there is the question of the FSA's human rights record. Those who want to oppose the revolt say that the armed insurgents are a bunch of thugs or even - some will actually use this propaganda term - 'terrorists'. Well, the fact is that the armies have captured and tortured and killed people they believed to be regime supporters or informants. I believe they have blown up regime apparatuses and probably have killed civilians in the process. My answer? You can criticise this or that attack, you can say that the Islamists who bombed Damascus and issued a sectarian statement are not allies of revolution. But you can't keep saying this is a 'civil war' and then express shock when one side, the weaker side, the side that has been attacked and provoked, the side that is ranged against a repressive dictatorship, actually fights a war.

For the regime is fighting a bitter war for its own survival, and it is
destroying urban living areas in the process. Do you want to go and
look at Jadaliyya, and
see the kinds of reports they post every day? Do you want to see the footage of what the Syrian armed forces are doing to residential areas, not to mention to the residents? Unless you're a pacifist, in which case I respect your opinion but disagree with you (in that patronising way that you will have become used to), the only bases for criticising such tactics are either on pro-regime grounds, or on purely tactical grounds. Among the tactical grounds are the objection that 1) this is the territory on which the regime is strongest (true, but I think the signs are that this can be overcome), and 2) there is a tendency in militarised conflict for democratic, rank-and-file forces to be squeezed out (not necessarily the case, but a real potentiality in such situations which one doesn't overlook). Of course, those tactical observations are valid, and people are entitled to their view. My own sense is that the regime has made it impossible to do anything but launch an armed insurgency and so these problems will just have to be confronted.

...

All this raises the question, then: what accounts for the advances being made by the insurgency given its relative military weakness and strategic divisions? Part of the answer is that there is no surety of continued advance. It's an extremely unstable situation, wherein the initiative could fall back into the regime forces' hands surprisingly quickly. The current gains have been chalked up rather quickly, and not without serious cost. Nonetheless, the dominant factor clearly is the narrowing of the social basis of the regime, and the growing conviction among ruling class elements, as well as the aspiring middle classes, that Assad and the state-capitalist bloc that rules Syria can neither keep control, nor update the country's productive capacity, nor reform its rampantly corrupt and despotic political system.

Much has been made of Assad's supposed popularity, and the fact that he
does have a significant social base. Even if the signs are now that the
core bases of his regime are starting to split, the durability of the
pro-Assad bulwark has to be encountered and understood. Recently, there
was a Yougov poll of Syrians, which Jonathan Steele drew attention to in the Guardian.
55% of those Syrians polled said they wanted Assad to stay, and the number one
reason they gave for saying this was fear for the future of their
country. Now, you can take or leave a poll conducted under such
circumstances. After all, the poll was conducted across the whole Arab world, with only 97 of its respondents based in Syria. How reliable can it be? And it would seem pedantic and beside the
point to expect anyone targeted by Assad's forces to pay any heed to it. Nonetheless, there's a real issue here in that at least a sizeable plurality of people are more worried by what will happen after Assad falls than by what Assad is doing now.

A significant factor in this, as mentioned, is the problem of sectarianism. There is no inherent reason why a country as ethnically and religiously diverse as Syria should suffer from sectarianism: this is something that has to be worked on, and actively produced. The Ba'ath regime certainly didn't invent sectarianism, but in pivoting its regime on an alliance between the Alawi officer corps and the Sunni bourgeoisie, it did represent itself as the safeguard against a sectarian bloodbath and has constantly played on this fear ever since, even while it has brutally repressed minorities. Given the breakdown of the class and ethnic alliance making up the regime's base, sectarianism as a disciplinary technology is one of the last hegemonic assets the regime possesses. The importance of opposition forces being explicitly anti-sectarian (as has been seen repeatedly) can thus hardly be over-stated. At the same time, fear of imperialist intervention and some sort of Iraq-like devastation being visited on the country, is also real. Syria, as the host of many of Iraq's refugees, experienced up close the effects of that trauma. Nor is there much in Libya's situation today that I can say I would recommend to the people of Syria. So, it has been of some importance that despite serious bloodshed the LCCs and NCC maintained resistance to the SNC approach of trying to forge an alliance with imperialism.

If you observe the tendencies in each case of revolution, you see amid concrete differences important similarities. For example, there were considerable differences between the Mubarak and Assad regimes and in the tempo and pattern of resistance and opposition. This was not just in terms of foreign policy and the relationship to US imperialism, but also in terms of the prominence of the state as a factor in neoliberal restructuring which was far more important in Syria, the impact of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing flows of refugees and fighters, the role of an organised labour movement in sparking rebellion which has so far played very little role in Syria (strikes have tended to be organised mainly be professional or petty bourgeois groups - another serious limitation faced by the revolution), and the role of military repression and insurgency in each state.

Even so, there are broad convergences which point to a general pattern. Most important of these are:

1) within these societies, a secular tendency toward a widening of social inequality, coupled with a narrowing at the top of society, resulting from the imposition of neoliberal accumulation patterns.

2) the fraying of the class alliances sustaining the regime as a consequence.

3) the exhaustion of the regime's resources for adaptation, and intelligent reform, such that all concessions come far too late and after such immense repression that it is hard to take them seriously.

4) the declining capacity of the state to maintain consent (or rather, encircle and marginalise dissent) either through material consessions or terror.

5) the re-emergence of long-standing opposition forces in new configurations during the period immediately before and since January 2011, with middle class liberal, Islamist and Arab nationalist forces playing a key role.

6) the emergence of forms of popular organisation - militias in some cases, revolutionary councils in others - performing aspects of organisation that would ordinarily be carried out by the state, and assuming a degree of popular legitimacy in contention with the regime.

7) the defection of significant sections of the ruling class and state personnel, who attempt to play a dominant, leading role in the anti-regime struggle and assume control of reformed apparatuses afterward.

My estimation is that in the context of the global crisis, and amid a general weakening of US imperialism - notwithstanding the relatively swift coup in Libya - these regimes are going to continue to breakdown, and opposition is going to continue to develop in revolutionary forms, ie in forms that challenge the very legitimacy of the state itself. The old state system, based around a cleavage between a chain of pro-US dictatorships and an opposing rump of nominally resistant dictatorships, is what is collapsing here. That is something that the advocates of negotiations as a panacea here might wish to reflect on. Certainly, I have no problem with negotiations as a tactic, particularly in situations of relative weakness. But these are revolutionary crises inasmuch as they severely test the right of the old rulers to continue to rule in the old ways.

These processes, not just in Syria but across the Middle East, are
richly overdetermined by the various crises of global capitalism, which
are so deep, so protracted, and giving rise to much social upheaval,
that it is beyond the capacity of even the most powerful states to bring
them under control. Into these complex processes, as we have seen, imperialist powers can impose themselves in various, often destructive, ways; but those commentators who spend all their time charting the agenda of US imperialism and its webs of influence in the region would do well to scale back and get a wider perspective. There is no reason at this moment to think that imperialist intervention is, or is going to be, the dominant axis determining the outcome and meaning of this process.

The police officer who killed Ian Tomlinson has been acquitted. This is a real achievement for the police, in defending PC Simon Harwood. They clearly went to the court with the bigger arsenal. The jury was not aware that the police's key witness, the pathologist Freddy Patel, is such a complete and utter disgrace. They were not aware that he has been struck off the Home Office's register of approved pathologists, that he has made serious 'mistakes' in high profile cases, and that many people believe he is a serial liar (replace 'many people' with 'I', and 'serial' with 'fucking'). They were also not told aware that the suspect, the killer, Simon Harwood, is an accomplished psycho with a string of complaints to his name. One has to assume that the police authorities moved heaven and earth, and used all their considerable institutional power, to ensure this verdict. So, it's an achievement for them.

The question is, why did the police go to such extraordinary efforts? The clue is in the final sentence to the Guardian's report on this: "No police officer has been convicted for manslaughter for a crime committed while on duty since 1986." This is crucial.

To be clear, there have been police officers pursued for crimes committed while off-duty, and these are sometimes taken extremely seriously. There was a well-known recent case of a police officer racially abusing a Pakistani shop owner. He was fired. But the main reason he was fired is because he was silly enough to commit his hate crime while off-duty and inebriated. Had he committed a crime while in uniform and on the job, the authorities would have felt compelled to defend him.

The reasoning can only be this: a) if a crime is committed by a police officer on the job, then it's the police force at stake rather than just one individual, and b) if the crime relates to the handling of members of the public, the police would want to protect the officer's right to determine the parameters of a given situation and use maximum discretion in how they deal with individuals. Implicitly, this means they expect these practices - from racist harrassment to lethal violence - to form part of the repertoire of police action.

This is a major victory for the police in defending the right to murder. One had thought that it couldn't be too long before they killed someone during the student protests, and had they gone on for much longer the strong likelihood is that they would have done. SNow we have a heavily militarised Olympics coming up, which the East End hates. And there is plenty of combustible material in this society, plenty to protest about. And I had already thought it would be surprising if they didn't kill someone this summer. Now I find it hard to imagine that the police won't avail themselves of a right they have so vigorously defended.

The paperback is out, complete with a detailed new afterword and some lavish reviews on the cover, and I'll be starting the relaunch of The Liberal Defence of Murder this Wednesday at 7pm, in the very swish Mosaic Rooms, between Earl's Court and High Street Kensington. This will be a very, very glamorous evening, and you are all expected to comport yourselves in a manner befitting the affair: principally by turning up, laughing at my jokes and then tastefully buying several copies of my fancy new paperback. So, shape up, and remember: I shall be quietly judging all of you in the audience, and making mental notes as to who is 'in' this season. Effectively, you will be auditioning.

Right in Obama's heartland in election year - my latest, on the Chicago teachers' dispute:

Last month, approximately 90% of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members voted for strike action. Only 1.82% voted against. This was a shock to the local administration.

Not
only is this the heart of Obama country, where unions are expected to
play ball with the Democrats in an election year. It is also a city
where, thanks to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, teachers are not allowed to strike
unless more than 75% of union members vote for it.

Yet it is not
just the local establishment that will be unsettled here. This is
getting national attention in the US, and a strike could be an
embarrassment to President Obama. Moreover, it could re-ignite the
American labour movement at a time of global unrest.

I. ‘Passive revolution’ emerged at first to explain a
particular kind of ‘bourgeois revolution’ (ie capitalist transition) effected
without a radical-popular assault on the state.
Gramsci’s focus was on the Risorgimento, but other examples would
include German Unification, and Meiji Restoration Japan. In the period since 1848, Neil Davidson suggests
in what is evidently the authoritative work on this subject, this type of
transition has been the most common due to two factors: first, the emergence of
the working class, whose minatory presence sapped the revolutionary afflatus of
the bourgeoisie; and second, the emergence of other ruling classes or social
groups capable of enacting the transition (in Germany, the feudal ruling class;
in Egypt as in many neighbours, the officer corps). Since capitalism had
emerged as clearly the most dynamic mode of production in a world system
increasingly dominated by it, non-capitalist ruling classes could be persuaded
to make the transition.

II. Thus, for Gramsci, the period after 1848 could be
characterised in ‘the West’ as a shift from the ‘war of manoeuvre’ and open
struggle against the feudal ruling classes, to the ‘war of position’, in which
bourgeois domination is secured through molecular transformations in the
composition of social and productive forces which become the matrix of new
changes.

III. Later, the scope of ‘passive revolution’ was extended
so that it could apply to major transformations within capitalism once that
mode of production was established.
These would be transitions aimed at overcoming otherwise potentially lethal
limitations to the further accumulation of capital within the social formation –
whether these limitations were posed by capital itself, by the working class,
or pre-capitalist forms. This was based
on Gramsci’s reading of two insights from Marx:

1. that no social formation disappears as long as the
productive forces which have developed within it still find room for further
forward movement;

2. that a society does not set itself tasks for whose
solution the necessary conditions have not already been incubated etc.

IV. ‘Passive revolution’ implements changes that are formally ‘progressive’ from
the point of view of permitting the development and rationalisation of the productive
forces by means of the modification of productive relations, and the rationalisation of social/demographic forces. Despite this, 'passive revolution' is a conservative, adaptive process, and is apt to be led by conservative or reactionary forces. An example of this type of transformation is the Fordist
re-organisation of American capitalism, in which demographic rationalisation
and industrial modernisation is achieved.
To the extent that this advances productive capacity, introduces collectivisation and planning, and
acculturates masses to urban life, it is seen as historically progressive.

V.
'Passive revolution' is thus, in both its main senses, a particular
relationship between political leadership and social transformation;
political leadership becomes identical with state domination, through
which transformation is achieved. The tendency in 'passive revolution' is for the bourgeoisie to be unable to rule directly, or alone. Partly for this reason, 'passive revolution' is internally related to the concept of 'Caesarism' which, despite being initially posited as an explicitly polemical formulation, is clearly drawn from Marx's discussion of 'Bonapartism', and which is also a tendency immanent to capitalist modernity. According to Gramsci, 'Caesarism' occurs where the two opposing fundamental classes are deadlocked, both sides evenly matched, potentially threatening mutual ruin: in such a catastrophic stalemate, a 'Caesar' can either play a progressive or reactionary role. It is in its reactionary sense that it is tied to 'passive revolution', as it is often the role of a 'Caesar' to carry through such a transformation. A 'Caesar' is not necessarily a great personality. The decisive thing is that 'Caesarism', whether it is personated in the form of a despot, or party, or faction, or alliance, represents some form of compromise between the classes, whether its general thrust is toward progress or reaction. That is why, as Gramsci says, ""every coalition government is a first stage of Caesarism". And, because of the enhanced role of the state in 'Caesarism', it can be an ideal type of regime to achieve 'revolution-restoration'. It is significant in this sense that Bismarck is given as an example of regressive 'Ceasarism'.

VI. ‘Passive revolution’ has an ambiguous
relationship to other Gramscian concepts, such as ‘hegemony’. In one sense, it would seem to be a polar
opposite of hegemony, insofar as ‘passive revolution’ is achieved as a form of
domination without consent. In Gramsci's main example, Risorgimento Italy, ‘passive revolution’ occurs not with the bourgeoisie in a hegemonic position, but with two opposing
forces (represented by Cavour and Mazzini, respectively) in a state of almost
deadlocked equilibrium. Bourgeois
domination, in this case, is not secured through a hegemonic alliance with subaltern groups, achieved through parliamentary democratic institutions. Rather, the active and leading layers of oppositional forces and classes are co-opted to the moderate, pro-capitalist centre, in a process known as 'transformism'. This has the effect of decapitating and disorganising the parties and organisations of the dominated classes - which is certainly a hegemonic practice, but is emphatically not the same thing as
hegemony. Generally speaking, 'passive revolution' is carried out over and against the subalterns, rather than with their consent; by means of a bureaucratic organisation of the 'power bloc' rather than through the expansive unity of the 'historical bloc'.

Yet at the same time, 'passive revolution' is, as I have said, a process in which some compromise between the contending classes is struck. In some form, however partial and mitigated, popular demands have to be addressed; a material substratum for acquiescence if not active assent must be created. Moreover, although 'passive revolution' is often a repressive form of modernisation, it is worth recalling that consent is often as not produced through coercion and terror - that is, through the demonstration with physical force that 'there is no alternative, and the only people talking of an alternative are criminals and misfits who get beaten up and arrested'. (Cf. Poulantzas: "State monopolized physical violence permanently underlies the techniques of power and mechanisms of consent".) There is a sense in which 'passive revolution' must simulate elements of bourgeois hegemony in a context of weakness, stasis or underdevelopment. This is why some authors refer to a 'limited hegemony' in the context of 'passive revolution', despite the fact that the dominant tendency is toward domination without consent.

VII. The delimitations of 'passive revolution' are extremely unclear. If Gramsci extended the concept of 'passive revolution' in his own theoretical development, a further enlargement was attempted by Christine Buci-Glucksmann as part of a
sophisticated Eurocommunist 'left critique' of Stalinism. According to Buci-Glucksmann, 'passive revolution', as a concept of transition, was not particular to bourgeois revolutions in Gramsci's useage, but was "a potential tendency intrinsic to every transitional process". This was so particularly where
the state played a dominant role, as in the USSR. Thus,
Stalinism was interpreted as 'passive revolution', resolving class
antagonisms through a process of conservative reformism conducted in and through the state: far from the state withering away, it 'penetrates' civil society and assumes a 'total' dominance. This has some basis in what Gramsci wrote, at least insofar as he referred to 'passive revolution' as a principle of interpretation "of every epoch characterised by complex historical upheavals ... a criterion of interpretation 'in the absence of other active
elements to a dominant extent'". Historically, this depends on the idea that Stalinism was carrying through the post-capitalist transition, albeit in a conservative way. Politically, it is in the last analysis an agument for a centrist approach to the state and parliamentary democracy: the democratic form, as the arena for the consolidation of the expansive unity of the historical bloc, must be the strategic axis of the transition, the counterpoint to a narrow 'revolution from above' which always contains restorationist tendencies. But the only way to resolve whether or not it is true to the terms of Gramsci's argument is to conduct a close philological reading. Here, it is most likely that Buci-Glucksmann's argument hinged on an over-interpretation of the phrase "every epoch", as well as perhaps an under-interpretation of the concept of the 'integral state', which leads to a problematic acceptance of the topography in which the state and civil society occupy separate, mutually hostile terrains.

VIII. The question, then, is how can the tendencies toward 'passive revolution', immanent to capitalist modernity, be interpreted today? The neoliberal transformation sharpened the tendencies toward 'passive revolution'. First of all, in the sense that it was a modernisation project, and that it rationalised the productive and demographic forces to an extent, even if it introduced all sorts of new pathologies and 'contradictions' in doing so. Second, in the sense that it involved some partial, limited concessions to popular interests - differentiation in the proletariat allowed this to be accomplished, even while the rate of exploitation was being driven up. Thirdly, in the sense that there were tendencies toward hegemony-building, an effort to shift the common sense, even though the main form in which transformation was achieved was through struggle. Fourth, in the emphasis on repression as a factor in building consent. Neoliberal reform did not merely rely on repression to enable its passage, but rather implemented a fundamental shift in the continuum toward repression: from welfare and material concessions to the carceral/punitive state. Finally in the transformist tendencies particularly evident in the latter phase of neoliberal transformation: following the open assault on low wage earners, union militants, the oppressed, the
social movements and the left, there ensues the incorporation of the leaders of
defeated or at least chastened social movements, unions and left parties into a
new neoliberal social democracy.

IX. The global crisis has demonstrated the need, purely on capitalist terms, for fundamental, structural reform of the capitalist system. In fact, the only viable solution on capitalist terms would be simultaneously the most irrational solution - the destruction of masses of capital, through profound economic contraction or through war. But this is not politically viable. Not even Rick Santorum could win on that slogan, and the bourgeoisie wouldn't tolerate it if he did. For that reason, the debate is between a set of mediating, compromise solutions with the emphasis shifting between Keynesian demand management and neoliberal regulation. In Europe, the most punitive neoliberalism is consistent with a programme of re-regulating financial markets up to and including a continent-wide Tobin tax. Even in Greece, the EU's austerity project is bound up with rationalising tendencies - building a better tax-collecting apparatus, etc. So, the tendencies toward 'passive revolution' are, I would say, sharpened further. Coterminous with this, the 'Caesarist' tendencies are sharpening as well. If the coalition government is the beginning of Caesarism in a parliamentary age, then the emergence of cross-party coalitions around a 'technocratic' agenda of fundamental institutional and social restructuring represents the beginnings of a Caesarist legion. One thing that Buci-Glucksmann was certainly right about was that the historic bloc, in its 'expansive unity', is the antithesis of the 'passive revolution' based on cynical, bureaucratic power bloc manouevering. The question is whether a new historical bloc can be forged in the popular struggles, with its strategic axis the hegemony of the working class and its forms of democracy.

This is an amazing report from the Spanish miners struggle by The Guardian's journalist:

The Asturian miners have embarked on a new 'Marcha Negra', a repeat of a famous action twenty years ago in 1992, when miners marched across the country to Madrid in defiance of job losses and cuts. Last night, the miners arrived in Madrid, surrounded by approx 150,000 supporters, about ten times the size of the reception in 1992. The Spanish media blacked it out, but it feels more like ostrich behaviour than effective censorship. This is coming alongside a fresh wave of cuts and VAT increases. Unlike in 1992, the government is actively broadening the base of social and industrial rebellion.

Peter Thomas, in his Marxism talk about Gramsci and the 99%, made a defence of the concept of proletarian hegemony against certain misconceptions that might put people off it. Pointing out that the working class is numerically and proportionately larger than ever, he suggested that the 99% was potentially the name for hegemony as a principle of unity, rather than as simply a form of domination: what we all have in common, despite our immense differences in identity, social category, occupational culture and habitus, etc., is that we are all exploited. This is what working class hegemony means in practice today. Not, generally speaking, the unity of a national popular bloc of classes under working class leadership: this becomes less the case as capitalist mode of production has entrenched itself, and thus simplified the class system in one sense. Rather, it means the dominance of the working class as the axis of our common exploitation and thus as the strategically privileged basis for organisation.
The arrival of the Asturian miners in Puerta del Sol, site of the Indignado rebellion, could be the the sign and sanction of this hegemony in motion. The question, then, is whether Spain's heteroclite social and industrial struggles can be stitched together under the banner of the 99%.

My latest for The Guardian is on the future for Syriza and the pressures it will face in the immediate future:

The key slogan through which Syriza won support was its call for a
government of left unity to express popular opposition to austerity.
Amid a deepening nadir of European social democracy, and a protracted
crisis of global capitalism, the issue of leftist governments is going
to be a recurrent one. Syriza was the first of the European left parties
(Die Linke, Fronte de Gauche, etc) to come near to taking office, but
it is unlikely to be the last.

However, Syriza now finds itself in
an ambiguous position. Having come close to forming a left government,
the pressure will be on to establish its credentials with international
lenders and EU leaders. But they must somehow do so without losing the
support of the most radical workers. Already, before the election, there
was a tendency to soften their stances; pledging to repeal the
memorandum laws, but insisting that they would not act "unilaterally".
These pressures will only increase in the coming months.

My latest article, about SYRIZA for In These Times magazine, is now online:

"After a period of worrying decline, some of Europe's Left parties, formed to contest social democracy from the Left, are on the rebound. The remarkable surge of SYRIZA in Greece is the latest indication of this..."

Don't forget to come to Marxism 2012, starting tomorrow. There is so much to discuss this year, so many arguments to have, so many people who are wrong about everything, and so much at stake. Greece, austerity, the eurozone, Spain, the coalition, Syria, Egypt, Syriza, Gramsci, Lenin, Althusser, Chinese capitalism, Bolivarianism, the unions, the parties, the bosses, the state, revolution and imperialism. Come. My meeting, you should know, is this Friday at 11.45am, on 'Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in the Liberal Tradition'. I'll be your badchen for an hour or so, then sign books or talk politics if you want.